#50 Bradley Hook - When the going gets tough...

Cool. So, yeah, welcome to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast Vlogcast. I don't know. Video podcast. Who knows? And with me today, I have got Brad Hook from the Resilience Institute. So, yeah, Kia ora, Brad.

What's going on, Tim? How are you?

I'm doing pretty good. Yeah.

Good to hear.

It's Friday. It's almost the weekend. It's a good day to record a podcast, I reckon.

I think it's a great day.

Yeah.

So thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure connecting and getting to know a little bit more about the work that you do and how aligned both of. Well, what we do is likewise.

Yeah. And, well, we were just talking before we went live, so, Brad, you. You reached out to me. You. You completely stole my thunder by. Because I've had this idea of being cheeky and sending emails to already existing B corps to say, hey, did you know that you could get four points on your assessment if you use Grow Good for some really core purpose trading or sales training, what have you? And you sent me that email and I'm like, damn it, someone's doing. But then I was like, hey, actually, beyond just what you do, being really cool, I think we should have a chat. And so, yeah, here we are.

Here we are.

Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, who are you? What. What does the Resilience Institute do? And yeah, yeah.

Resilience Institute was established in 2002 in Uganda, Zealand, by a medical doctor, Dr. Sven Hansen. He was working with executives and he noticed some interesting patterns in terms of people just struggling with their life, experiencing all kinds of adversity. Instead of prescribing medication, he started prescribing preventative medicine and positive psychology and movement and sleep, and found that this had an amazing impact. So he created a framework which he named Resilience. And it's really a holistic work way of looking at how you deal with your life and developing a toolkit that supports you through life, which is going to change and present all kinds of opportunities and challenges. And the Resilience Institute grew organically from New Zealand to a few different locations around the world. I came around in.

About nine years ago and I saw the potential for digital transformation to really equip employees of companies with more than just a workshop. Because we all know can attend a workshop, everyone claps and then they go back to their desk and do the same thing. So how do we make that journey of resilience sustainable? And that's something I've been interested in for a long, long Time. So, yeah, it's been a pleasure working with Resilience Institute and seeing it evolve from being quite a small organization to one that now has a global footprint with a robust digital toolkit, a huge network of facilitators and doing great work, really impactful work. And that's what I think. That's what makes it meaningful for all of us who are involved.

100. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of crazy ideas you've been talking about here, like preventative medicine and you know, getting prepared and you know, to take on the world and everything that it will throw at you and.

Exactly.

So, yeah, so much for us to dig into today. So Resilience Institute, born in New Zealand.

Yeah. Okay.

Because. Yeah, I just. With the. Because it's a Swiss. The guy Swiss, originally, he, he actually.

Grew up in South Africa.

Right.

As did I. We don't have that connection. We didn't, we never met there. But he moved to New Zealand many, many years ago and as a doctor working in hospitals, including down in Christchurch, and then he realized that he could have more of a positive impact in the world by equipping people with these resilient skills. It was really quite a revolutionary idea when he started doing it back in 2002 and before.

Yeah. And potentially. I mean, it's interesting that I kind of feel for many individuals the idea of preventative stuff, like it makes sense.

Yes.

But the health system is still not set up to be preventative. I feel like more and more people get the idea that it's dumb to wait for the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, but it's hard to access help and assistance from a broadly speaking, the mainstream medical system because it's just geared up to deal with what's thrown at it and that's tough. And I guess even like insurance providers. You know, we were just talking before. You've been to the osteopath this week? I've been to. For a mass. Well, we do get massage through our health insurance, but you kind of go, what would the world look like if everyone was given one? Even if it was like one 20 minute free massage a month, like, what would that do? Just the stress levels and injury and.

The rest of it and no phone allowed through the little hole in the massage table.

Disconnect from the noise for a few minutes.

Yeah, I'm very intentional about phone off. Even my watch off. Like, no bleeping. It stays in the car. I mean, here I'm. Yeah. Disconnected.

No, I think it makes a huge difference. And. And that's where a program like ours is useful because it is evidence based. So it's not like introducing woo woo fluffy ideas. But it's also really practical and it has to be. You don't want to go into an organization and say hey guys, here's a whole lot of the. And it's really hard to put into practice. It's gotta be if you do this one thing, you're gonna get this benefit. If you do, if you improve your sleep, you're gonna be able to focus better and kind of connecting the dots because we all know lots of stuff but there is so much information out there. So having a simple framework, I think that's, that's the objective of what we do, 100%.

So young Brad growing up in South Africa was resilience. Like have you have, are you a resilient person? Has resilience been a big thing for you? Like yeah, like what was young Brad keen to do when he was older? Does young Brad still not know? Maybe, who knows? Loads of questions. But let's start with young Brad in South Africa. What was the future looking like for a young Brad?

Oh, thanks for asking. It was an interesting upbringing. I wouldn't say it was easy. There was a real contrast between the life I had when I spent weekends with my dad and home with my mum. Like really different in lots of different ways. It was, you know, by, by all standards it was a, it was not a super difficult life. But going to all boys schools and being caned, it was still, it was probably about 20 years behind where New Zealand was at the same time. So there was a lot of corporal punishment. You learn to navigate all of this, this adversity, come up with clever schemes and tricks to get, get away with things. It was an interesting upbringing. I discovered surfing when I was around about just before I turned 10. And that was quite a catalyst for me because it gave me these moments of just mindfulness, getting out into the waves flow state without really being able to articulate what it was all about. Except that it was a lot of fun. And that kind of became my. It's both an escape, but it's also your passion. And, and I think that really set me up for success. Mastering something like surfing in this variable environment. You learn a lot of lessons that you take forth into your life but then got up into, got into all kinds of mischief and ended up in trouble for various things. Car accidents and motorcycle accidents. And then I decided, you know what, I'm going to move to the uk. So I packed up my Little suitcase and landed in the uk and yeah, that was a very different trajectory from there then on.

Yeah, I can imagine. I think it's. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't. I didn't get too much trouble, but. Yeah, I just, you know, fairly. There was definitely the. The cricket boot or the cricket slew, you know, shoe as like the punishment. Not necessarily the cane at school, but. Yeah. Never got it myself. I was obviously too good.

But yeah, I think, you know, young boys, it's, It's.

It's in our genetics to push boundaries and.

Yeah.

And explore. And I think it's interesting, you know, when you look at the. Well, there's two parts to this, I guess, you know, this, this massive rise in juvenile crime. But actually, when you look at some of the stats, it's. It's like a tiny little blip at the end of a very long doubt. But anyway, statistics. Politicians. Yeah, but even if there was a massive uptick, I do wonder how much of it is a reaction to, you know, lockdowns, not being able. Be out and about and exploring and doing. You know, clearly it's like a. But, yeah, it's kind of. It's an outlet, you know, it's like. Yeah, the idea of Nick in a car and stealing some jewelry, like, there's a lot of excitement and adrenaline and adventure locked into that and maybe we get away with it. That's like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're with your friends and you're on a mission and you listen to some gangster rap that glorifies this kind of thing and, you know, you're in the zone. I've met a lot of young guys. We. I was contributed to a surf therapy program here in the Bay of Plenty, and so many of them didn't even realize that they were really doing something wrong. You know, they. They were young boys. They got influenced by their peers, and for some of them, they thought, well, if I go to jail, it's okay. My whnau are in there anyway, so it's cool. I'll just go and hang out with, you know, some people haven't seen for a while, and so they don't really realize the implications of going into a shop and. And robbing the shop. But afterwards, as from a neuroscience perspective, the. The prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until 25.

Yeah.

So of course we're haphazard. That's where impulse control comes from. So mine was very undeveloped.

I think it's the same with most boys. Was it the other stat I've read is that guys don't reach emotional maturity until around their 42. So yes, it's amazing. You thought you just made it. Are you like 44? I think I'm there. Yeah. I think I'm there too. I'm almost 45. I must be well over.

Yeah, almost 45.

But yeah, it's kind of amazing that guys even last in their 40s to reach, you know, with all the stupid stuff that we do. And it's amazing that any, you know, any other, any women would choose to hang out with us for, until we're 42 and eventually we, we might get there. So.

So yeah, and then we have, then we have a midlife crisis.

Made it, but there's going to be some changes. Yeah.

So. So you end up in the uk. Whereabouts in the uk?

Yeah, so I ended up in London and that's where I first discovered.

Working in big corporates and how quickly you can advance if you really apply yourself. It was incredible. One moment I was working as a, in a telecom company and I had a pretty low level manual kind of data entry job but I learned Excel so I just bought a book how to program VBA Visual Basic for applications and automated my job and I showed the manager, I was like, oh, look what I did. He's like, I think we're gonna have to have a chat.

Like that's incredible. But it wasn't really. All I did was try and problem solve and, and, and optimize and so it was interesting. Yeah, I went on this journey in there and ended up working for Lloyd's of London and wow, Unilever and, and lots of different organizations over there. Before I decided, hold on a sec, I think I can do this kind of stuff for myself. Maybe I'll just be a freelancer and, and create kind of digital solutions for other organizations. Yeah, so I was there for about four and a half years.

Nice and.

Enjoyed. So yeah, you sort of took your learnings from the big company experience, but did you, did you sort of feel that you fit it, that you were fitting in to that big environment?

Yeah.

I still had this yearning for well being and I really missed surfing. Of course I would go down to Cornwall, crunch through the ice every now and then to go for a surface. And I yearned for more creativity for sure, more connection with others because I was going down a road towards being quite a tech kind of digital specialist which was new back then. You know, HTML was pretty new at the time that I was in the uk. Shows my age.

And, and yeah, it's you know, I liked what I learned in these corporations and it really set me up for the future. But at the same time I realized that I'm, I'm suited to working, collaborating with CEOs, collaborating with founders, helping people realize their vision. That's where I can be kind of a bit of a Swiss army knife with lots of different skills. So I took that across to Australia and of course I got to reconnect with surfing and that's that lifestyle. And then really worked with hundreds of companies helping them sharpen their online presence and their digital strategies and working on very early forms of digital transformation. And then I got into the well being space. I met this amazing guy, his name's Ian Hutchinson and he brought me in as part of his company. We created one of the world's first wellbeing platforms for corporations. And it was an amazing journey. We got lots of companies signed up. This is in 2001, before workplace well being platforms were really a thing and, and that gave me a really good grounding. It exposed me to lots of interesting ideas from positive psychology and you know, things that I'd intuitively always sensed but I didn't have much experience with.

Yeah, it's always interesting when you. And I think because that's the thing, there's a lot of positive psychology or yeah. General sort of self help that it's kind of really obvious and commonsensical and you intuitively kind of feel it or think that that's going to be true but then you're not quite sure and then you realize that. Yeah, actually it's either been around since Aristotle, you know, or the Stoics or someone thousands of years ago. Like actually yeah, we've already discovered that.

Yeah. Or it gets researched and someone goes, oh yeah, that's, that's, that's why. So yeah, it's really, it's really interesting kind of field. Yeah, I kind of.

Yeah. The whole sort of self improvement, I probably really got into it. So 2014, when I had, when I had my sort of early midlife crisis purpose meaning like what's going on? I hate my job. You know, none of this all makes sense. Yeah. Before that I kind of was probably a bit, bit of a floater. Just kind of. Yeah. Was floating in the river. Not really. Yeah. You know, trying to be, trying to be good, you know. But yeah, still I think my brain was still in that sort of prefrontal cortex. Lack of leadership, self leadership in terms of like getting stuff done. It definitely, it feels like a different world if you're Growing up as a 18 year old now, like the, the amount of positive content that you could get into, but I guess equally the amount of toxic content that's out there and trying to wade between the two. I don't know if you're into. Have you seen that guy, the Liver King? Have you seen.

Very much so, yeah.

What a story.

Yeah.

I mean, just a classic example of, you know, theoretically a really positive icon trying to help promote, you know, really, really pushing yourself and then you find out it's all a lie. For those of you who haven't heard of the Liver King. Yeah. Just he was this guy who does all these like primal workouts and literally all he eats is raw liver and awful. And off cuts of like the most. Yeah. Testicles, God knows what else. Claiming that this is. And he was absolutely jacked, like lifting all these weights. And then. Yeah. It turns out basically he's just taking steroids.

And he even said that he was natural on. On podcast. That's the problem. He was like, no, I'm completely natural. It's just liver and sunshine in certain places.

And.

And yeah, that. I think that was the. The problem is that he's marketing these nine ancestral tenants and they're really good advice. It's not far from resilience.

Yeah.

It's basic primal stuff. But then it turns out that he's on this incredible stack of steroids.

Yeah. So it's tough out there. Right. It's tough to know who do you.

Believe, who do you trust.

Yeah. Who do you trust? Yeah. Yeah. Where do you start? And all the rest of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I would love to hear how you develop an interest in purpose, discovering your purpose. Because for so many people, they. They know what they don't like, but they don't necessarily know what they want. Yeah. And so they, they just sit in some sort of inertia and they don't activate any change in their life. So maybe you could share a little bit about.

Yeah.

Your. Your journey with purpose.

I think in. In some ways I was lucky in that I had, you know, I. I call it the existential wet fish to the face moment is what people get. So for me, it was the earthquakes here in Christchurch. So 2010, 2011, and then 2012, my wife and I say, my wife and I clearly my wife did most of the heavy lifting and we had our daughter. And the earthquakes were definitely like the big initial shake up. Like, literally, it's kind of like, what am I doing? You know, life is short. That was close. You know, we almost all died. Yeah. And shout out to New Zealand tourism, like, you really do a good job of keeping quiet. The fact that, you know what, after the event, they're like, oh, yeah, no, we've been called the Shaky Isles for years. Yeah, don't see that front and center of your tourism brochures. You know, it's kind of like, oh, and don't, don't worry about the mega volcano in the North Island. Yeah, no, it's, it's really quiet. You'll be fine. Yeah, they keep that, you know, it's all like, oh, don't go to Aussie. It's full of big animals that are going to eat your head. Come to New Zealand. It's really safe. Yeah, whatever.

Volcanoes.

Yeah, hashtag volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Yeah. Um, so, yeah, the tsunamis killed. It was like, was that, there was a beer ad. Wasn't there something. Oh, are there, are there sharks in the water? No, it's all right. The, the crocs ate them all.

Are there any dangerous animals in his head? That's okay. The tsunamis and megamorph killed all of them.

You'll be fine.

Yeah, it'll be fine. Be great.

Just get a campervan.

Yeah, that goes really quick. Yeah. Yes. Having gone through that kind of moment. So I used to sell medical devices and it seemingly is quite a meaningful job. You know, your job is to go into the operating theater, support surgeons, you know, operating theater teams to get the best outcome from the product that you sell for that patient. But there was so much corruption and malfeance going on in that industry. But when you're in it and you're paid well and you get to go to international conferences in international ski resorts like Sun Valley, Idaho and Davos, you kind of go, yeah, I can possibly turn a blind eye to that. And also as a young male, you know, I was mid, mid-20s, you know, through to early 30s. You know, as you said, you like just not really able to critically think to that depth about what you're doing. And yeah, so for me it was that. It was that earthquake shake up and it was really probably the birth of Daisy, our daughter, that really cemented it. And I think I feel it's quite common that, you know, quite often the mother gets very centered on the nest and it's like, right, we need a warmer house, I need a bigger car that's safer. And it's about real close up protection. But for me it was like, okay, I get that and that's kind of easy. But looking forward 20 years. What world is she going to inherit if we keep doing the really dumb stuff that we're currently doing? You know, environmentally, socially, spiritually, metaphysically. It just seems like, what are we doing? And so, yeah, that was the really big moment. And I literally got to a point where I was standing in the operating theater in Ascot Hospital in Green Lane and the surgeon was being a typical, you know, alpha orthopedic surgeon. Like, things aren't working, therefore I'm going to throw all my stuff out of the cot and blame everyone else and, you know, kind of just basically bring, you know, bring the energy down to a pretty low level. And I almost was to the point of going, look, you multi millionaire, doing what you do, all these people, barely on a living wage, like, wind your neck in. Shut up. You're the big boy, just deal with it. And I, and I thought, yeah, that's. If that's going through my head right now, I'm not, I'm not in the right job anymore. I cannot, I can't do this. So I literally walked home because we were living that close hospital. I said, I'm done. I can't. You know, all the stuff that I'd seen, all the corruption and the best way to describe all the stuff that was going on is just go and watch the Bleeding Edge, which is a documentary on Netflix which highlights like everything that goes on in the, in that sort of medical device industry. So, yeah, having gone through that, I was literally an existential crossroads. It's like, I don't. Why are we all doing this? Like, why are we all pretending to go along with this just to pay, pay the mortgage? There's a really cool, it's like an 80s B movie called they Live. I don't know if you've seen it. This guy, he discovers this pair of sunglasses that lets him see the world for what it really is. And it's run by these aliens essentially who are just making people buy shit they don't need. And it's like, it's like a massive anti consumerist movie. He puts, he puts the sunglasses on and he sees like all the billboards is just, just got like, obey, consume, buy, purchase. And yeah, so I kind of felt like I'd been given these sunglasses and I could see the world for what it really was. Meanwhile, everyone else is just going like, but just earn loads of money. It's fun, like, go and buy shit. Like, just chill out, man. So, yeah, I kind of had that. And I think it's, I mean, it's really Common. Some people call it a subconscious awakening. But yeah, any kind of existential shock. So near death experience, death of a close family member, significant health scare, death, birth of a child. Yes, any and all of those will correct. And so I literally feel that I'm lucky that I have that kind of like jolt because I think there's a lot of other people that I'm just kind of like you say, I'm just kind of comfortable with the discomfort. Not really sure. And I think, yeah. And there's so, so many, you know, at a high level. There's a guy, Ray Anderson, who was CEO of Interface, he had a health scare. I can't remember if it was a cancer scare or a heart attack. Heart attack. He basically came back from recuperation, said, right, we transforming this company so they, they sell carpet tiles and they used, it was all petrochemical based, like just destroying the planet with every tile that they sold. He's like, we can't do, like we're done. Like I've had my epiphany. Like we're changing. So yeah, I think people like us who have that epiphany are luckier because you literally just have this line in the concrete, not the sand. It's like it's in the concrete. This is not shifted. I'm done. Yeah. So that was kind of me and then really I was just kind of like, well what, what is it all about then? Like what, why, why have we been conditioned just to chase money and trinkets and, and stuff and is that the right thing? And what is life all about? And so I went on a four or five year journey of self discovery to try and work out what is it all about. And that's when I discovered this whole purpose thing. And it's like, oh, right. So it's about contribution, it's about meaning, it's about understanding the contribution. It's about making stuff better. Not, you know, he who dies with the most toys wins. Which is kind of like the, the prevailing consumer capitalist mantra that has been foisted upon us. So yeah, fun times.

It is, it really is. And I think it is so important to discover, to have those moments and realize something's not right. And it is not just something needs to change, it is going to change. And then activating and just whether you have to have a transition phase from the old to the new, often there is that time of discovery. I had that I ended up in India for an India and Nepal for a couple of years. That was interesting and it really helps you to. To realize, wow, my problems are pretty small in comparison. Focus on what matters and if it's not just like dream it and it will transpire, it's more like have that purpose and then put in place some stepping stones.

Yeah. And how old were you when you had your sort of moment?

Was about, around about 2008. I realized something needed to change. I was in Australia, things were going well. I had a good business and. But it wasn't right. I was helping people just create ways to boost consumerism. Really. That's what it was all about. And some of the companies I wasn't necessarily aligned with. So you feel this level of distress when there's values, misalignment. You're like, okay, I'm going to help you create something that I don't really believe in.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then I, I had this moment where I thought I only. I would like to work with people that I like that are aligned with me and I would like to work on projects that have a positive impact in the world. And you're being connected to nature. As a surfer, it really distressed me when I saw the amount of rubbish in the ocean, for example, in places like Bali or you. You get to Fiji and there's a beautiful island and there's just plastic on the shore. Thought like, how can I. And I still haven't resolved this. This is probably my next step is to really get involved in how do we reduce the amount of plastic that we produce and, and getting much more into environmental concerns. But resilience is a way of helping lift consciousness, help people realize like you can control things. And the more you focus on what you can control, the, the wider your circle of influence becomes because you're getting momentum. And that's what I like. So helping people make more conscious decisions and hopefully that's going to be one of the contributions I have.

Yeah, no, totally. And so how old were you? 2008. Would have been what, so early 30s? Ish.

Yeah, early 30s. And then I, I departed on that trip maybe around 2010. And. And then at. At the end of that trip, that's when I met my partner to be. And one thing led to another and next thing there was a little person on.

And then that really did change how I operated. You know, it became. It no longer was about me, it was about us. And how can you create this foundation and stability and oh, what a learning experience. I mean.

Yeah, still learning.

It turns out it's still in progress. It's not perfect. Yeah.

I don't think Anyone. And no one has won parenting yet. It's like, hey, I won it. I've done it. It's all good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I had a couple of days of quiet time because of something I did this week.

Yeah, it's. I was listening to a podcast recently because it's interesting. I guess there's a lot of the younger generation who are kind of like, but we don't want to have kids because why would we bring kids into this broken world? And, you know, we. I guess there are some good arguments around the concept of broader depopulation. And, you know, we can't just keep exponentially growing. But by the same token, the, the consciousness lifting value of your locus of control. Now 100, like, you know, it. It's. It's kind of like, it feels like it's kind of being designed. It's like you're young and you're naive and it's all about you, and that's great. And you go party and life's amazing and yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you meet someone else and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay. Actually just stop and pause for a minute and think of how they might want to do this or how to. And having that tension. And I guess the ideal partner is that person who brings, you know, almost like fills that shadow part of you to a degree where there's enough tension but enough overlap that you're pushing and testing each other in a way where you both grow. And then you're throwing this child grenade of like, oh my God, like, how does this thing work? And your locus of control pretty much is 100% out of you, and you kind of think, you know, as seemingly the species with the highest level of consciousness. Is that all part of the plan? It's like, you know, this is part of the ladder of that consciousness raising because I think, you know, in terms of that making the world a better place. There's a guy, Gus Speth, who's got that kind if, you know, that comedy sort of talks. You know, I thought 10 years of good science would help us basically, you know, solve any environmental problem. But basically I've realized it's a consciousness issue, not. Not a science issue. And I think that's my interest in what you're doing is we can get science and data, but even then that's not, you know, it's corruptible. It's. It's not always perfect. And I say that having worked in the medical industry, where there's a lot of data and studies that get done that the person who paid for the study paid to get the right answer. So let's not just say that. But yeah, there's this spiritual metaphysical balance that I think we've completely just written off as being useless and you know, woo woo and all the rest of it. Yeah, and I think that's.

People are hungry for it as well because you see people, people trying to find ways to connect with themselves, like the rise of meditation apps. People realize that they need a little bit of space. They want to connect to something deeper. And just all of the teachers who have emerged in recent times, everyone from, you know, Eckhart Tolle through to even Russell Brandt, to, to some extent, he's becoming a spiritual leader. Exploring, questioning the narrative. It's, it's very interesting.

Yeah, nice. Typical. So, so resilience then. It's quite a broad way. We could probably talk for hours just on the topic of resilience. But yeah, we were talking before when we first connected how there's a good link between like positive mindset and resilience. So the more optimistic you are, the more resilient you are. The more resilient you are, the more optimistic you are. But there's also this link to, to purpose.

So you are the Resilience Institute. So what is resilience? Because I think there's a little bit of fake news sometimes about resilience. So. Yeah, what is it?

So from our perspective, resilience is the learned ability. Because we learn these skills, we're not born resilient. It takes 18 years, sometimes 42 years, before we're fully resilient and ready for life. It's the learned ability to bounce, which is to recognize when I'm experiencing adversity. And we have a whole model based on the downward spiral. But to recognize those signals, is it in my mind, is it in my emotions, is it in my body? And can I bounce forward? And ideally, can I bounce forward fast? Because the research shows that 77% of the time, humans grow stronger as a result of having dealt with some adversity. Post traumatic growth. But the objective of resilience is to be able to recognize it and take rapid action, rapid bounce. So bounce. The second part is grow. What are things we can do, practices, rituals, routines that will increase our energy so that we're ready for life's challenges and opportunities. And who would have thought that one day sleep would be considered a practice? But it really is because the boundaries between day and night have dissolved. We can be, we can have dawn, light around us 24 hours a day if we want, through screens and LED bulbs and devices. So creating rhythms that enable us to match our rhythms with nature's rhythms, which ultimately gives us more energy, improves our focus. So it's movement, diet and so forth, things that we can practice. And I've, I've recently introduced a whole module on microhabits based on James Clear's work and a lot of other work that I've been immersed in, because that closes the knowing doing gap. Like, I can know all of this stuff, but doing it is challenging. So bounce grow. The third part is Connect, which is about our relationships, collaboration, emotional intelligence. Empathy is a really big one. We find people get a lot of value from learning just the basics in terms of empathy, even viewing it as a portal that opens when you're feeling more calm and focused and connected and positive. But as soon as you shift down into fight flight freeze mode, that empathy portal shuts and you, you see things from one perspective only and usually coupled with quite negative emotions. And then finally, the fourth part of the program is flow. How do you create your high performance zone? And this is where we've taken a lot of tools from high performance sports and made it really simple. So instead of people sometimes say, what is flow? Well, if you have ever had that big report and it's due on Friday morning and now it's Thursday night and you activate all of the resources required to get that thing done, okay, you're going to be tired tomorrow morning because you stayed up late. But wow, that was like, I used to call them my power hours and go, it's amazing how they sometimes happen. The reality is you can create the conditions for flow anytime. But from a resilience perspective, you need to remember that we have to balance performance with care. So if you perform, perform, perform, eventually you will burn out or you will just find yourself unfocused or distracted or just fatigued. So create those rhythms like time for high performance flow state and then relaxation, micro break and then time to maybe connect with others and then relaxation, batch processing, similar tasks. So it's kind of a framework for to be the best version of ourselves. But it's all based in, in the latest research, which makes it a reliable set of tools.

Yep. Nice. So.

Are there some people who. I just feel like there are some people as adults who I know who are not very resilient. Like anything hits them and it's just, oh, it's all over. Where there are other people who, it just seems like they can take a freight train in the face every day. And it's just like, is that all you've got? I'm coming again. So, so how, how much can you learn? Resilience? And are there different levels? Is there like a spectrum of resilience where some people, like, they are just going to tap out and that is all they've got, or under the right conditions, can anyone become like superhero? Like, I can literally take on anything.

I think anyone can get themselves to a point of maybe not superhero resilience, but of pretty robust resilience. I mean, look, I talk about this stuff all day and I have moments where I'm at the bottom of the spiral and I'm going, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to survive? This is so difficult. But you've practiced enough times that you just bounce fast and so you get back to where you need to be. There are some genetic factors that can influence resilience, but they're minor. Less than 5% of your resilience is genetic. Growth mindset really helps. So you've obviously heard of the fixed versus the growth mindset, Carol Dweck's work. It's interesting to. To note that even just those thinking patterns can influence your resilience. You get someone who just says, oh, well, I'm just not talented. So I'm just, there's nothing I can do. This, it's all just going to go wrong. This always happens. That's just a thinking trap. That's not reality. That's just patterns that you've practiced enough times that it becomes the voice in your head. You can break those at any point and go, well, what can I do right now? There's always something that you can do. Focus on what's within your control and just get started. Calm your nervous system. If you're in a state of fight, flight, or freeze, everything seems just overwhelming. And that's where you see people catastrophize and go, oh my God, this always happens to me that everything's wrong. It's okay. It's just your nervous system responding to what is it perceives as a threat in the environment. Is an inbox full of emails really a threat to your survival? Of course not. So what can you do? And the foundation of our training is really establish a state of calm. Because as soon as your nervous system feels calm and you signal to your nervous system that I'm actually safe, right now there's no line in the building, I can start to activate my prefrontal cortex again and be fully human once again. And Activate my emotional intelligence. So we practice tactical calm. As a practice, I'll share it with listeners. It's very simple. And, and actually when we run workshops, it's one of the most fun experiences. As you know very well, in a workshop you'll always have a few extroverts. So you say, I need a volunteer. And someone goes, yeah, I'll do it. And you say, okay, we're going to put your heart rate on the big screen in front of all of your colleagues and we'll ask your colleagues what stresses you. And it's so much fun because people are like, oh, it's Mike from accounts, you know. Yeah, this supplier, that person who doesn't pay their bills. And their heart rate goes into this jagged pattern which shows low coherence, low heart rate variability. And then we use this tool, tactical calm. We do it together. I take their heart rate off the screen and it's in for four seconds, out for six seconds and you just repeat this for a couple of minutes and then we switch back and you just see their heart rate has changed and they're now in the zone of what we call coherence. They're calm, they focus, connected. And it's as simple as that. Just every time you start to feel yourself panic, just, just fact check. Sometimes you need it.

Right.

There's a car racing towards you as you cross the road. Yeah. Use fight flight, but. Or flight and not freeze.

Yeah, don't freeze well, unless you. Yeah, exactly.

And that's why a deer freezes in the headlights, because they evolved for most of history without bright lights flying towards them.

So what is this thing?

Yeah, what is it? So bring yourself to that state of calm and that's the foundation for all resilience. And I think that's where a lot of people get values like, oh yeah, I'm finding myself.

Really hyper aroused down regulate the nervous system or just practice calm. And, and so I think from that base then you can start to explore some of the positive psychology, reframing and so forth.

Yeah, no 100%.

Which is interesting. You know, and again it's like you look back at common sayings that are in the vernacular, you know, take a minute, count to 10. Yeah, well, how many times have you heard that? How many times? I mean, I remember at school or parents. Yeah, just take a minute, count to 10. It's like, well that's a smart tactic that has clearly been passed down for quite a while because it's. Yeah, like I say, yeah, one of my. Yeah, because like for me I. I spent a bit of time in the reserve forces in the British army, and I think that for me, that was foundational in terms of building resilience, because it's like, you don't have an option. You're going to do something hard right now, but we're all good, all going to do it together. And. And the thing that you mainly kept in the back of your mind was it's a training exercise. They can't actually kill us. So, you know, this is good. We've got a ceiling here that they hopefully can't push through. And, you know, one of the phrases we always used to sort of joke about was we'd call it, you know, how hard can it be? It's like, they can't kill us. So that's our. That's our ceiling. And it's interesting, you know, as I've dug into more positive psychology, particularly I'm big fan of the stoics.

Yeah.

And the whole idea of, like, negative visualization. So it's like, I love it. What is the worst possible outcome? Well, the actual worst is they kill us. But the amount of forms that the sergeant major have to fill in having killed one of us is so big, I don't think we're gonna go there. Right. Could I be injured? Well, yes, possibly. It's the Army. You know, we're doing physical things in extreme environments, potentially bad weather, you know, trekking around the hills, whatever. Yeah, that's potential. But if I did, we know that there's a hospital. Yeah. So you kind of. What is the actual worst case? And you kind of work from that. Go. Actually, it's not that bad, is it?

Exactly.

If something did go wrong. So, yeah, I kind of feel like there was a lot of stuff, and I guess there's possibly some intentionality around stuff that they try and teach you in the army to build you to be a stronger human so that you can do hard things. But, yeah, that's me. And one of my favorite things I've done, I guess from that time it was. It's a stat that I think the U.S. navy SEALs have curated or collated, is when you. When you tell yourself you're done, you're actually only at 40% of capacity. But it's kind of like the safety valve of the brain going, no, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop. This is getting. I'm not liking this. Yeah. And dealing to that voice in your head, which, you know, I think that's. That's the. For me, is the key to resilience. But that's where the link is into kind of like purpose and it's like the voice and who's actually running that voice and taking control of that and that, that's how you kind of punch through to that, that higher level.

Exactly. That's really interesting. Is. Well, from a couple of angles in that book, I don't know if you've heard of the Expectation Effect by David Robson. He's, he's, he's interviewed on the Resilience podcast, was voted one of the best books by The Guardian for 2022. And he talks exactly about that. And in fact, some of those, they, they did a study on loads of different people and they found that if you think stress is good for you, you perform way better than those who think that stress is bad for you. You give them the same tasks, but it's just a framing. And if you think this is going to be beneficial, people can do superhuman things. And they found that the Navy SEALs were one of those groups in particular because they have so many filters before you get to become a seal. It was really made up of people, people with incredible growth mindsets, not really physical capabilities to some degree, but just they're mentally, they're ready for anything and they love the, they love the volatility, they love the vuca. Yeah, yeah. So, so I, I think there is so much more that we are capable of and, and having those experiences like you had, it's in invaluable because it just teaches you that what's the worst that can happen? And once you remove all of those negatives, you get to the present moment.

Yeah.

Okay, well, I'm here now. Let's just do it.

Let's go. And like I say, if you're using that, the idea of like, control what you can, well see your approach, your mindset, the sense of optimism, it's going to be a good outcome, but also you can, you can mitigate for some of the risks. It was a really interesting thing I read, luckily, when our daughter was quite small. You know, it's really common. You're in the park or the playground and you'll see a kid about to do something and the parent goes, stop up. Be careful. But apparently there was a phrase that I think was like a Norwegian or Scandinavian psychologist said, no, instead of saying be careful, tell them to think about it. And that for me was like, oh, that is so good. Because, like, be careful. It's like, oh, there's a, there's a safety boundary here that I want to explore. But you're telling me as my responsible adult that I can't. Whereas it's like, cool, go and jump between the two logs, but just think about it, like if you did fall, how would you land? Or think about where, where are you going to put your foot? And, and that I just thought it's such a genius way of reframing, giving something hard a go. Because if as soon as you say be careful, you're kind of already in the oh, you know, fright flight, freeze mindset. Whereas, like, just think about it, think through what could happen, mitigate for it, consider it, then give it a go.

Yeah, I love that. And I think there is a generation of kids in between maybe our kids and us or between the millennials and our kids who maybe did have too much helicopter parenting, who were also the guinea pigs given this technology that they carry around. And I hope that our kids will have better habits and relationships with technology and so forth and be a little bit more, a little bit less risk averse because there's a generation in between that looks like they're struggling.

Yep. Yeah. And you certainly see that with the shocking statistics around mental health with young people and yeah, the effects that.

You know, social media, we've even had that with our daughter, you know, during lockdown, Kids messenger popped up as like this mechanism for kids to stay in contact and you just forget, you know, I guess back in the, in our day, you know, you'd have to, the rotary telephone that you'd have to book in a time and it's like, I will call you at six o'. Clock. And then you'd normally speak to the parent, oh, hi Mr. Smith. You know, like speak to Brad, please, or whatever. And these kids were just messaging each other and ringing it. Like they'd be like 50 missed calls in 30 seconds. And then the kids are getting angry and, and upset that they haven't answered. It's like there's no expectation that someone will answer. And yeah, it's like the lack of resilience in the moment of they haven't picked up the phone. It's like, oh my gosh, like we haven't even got into tick tocks and you know, all the other stuff and trolling and scary. Yeah, yeah, we're those parents who are kind of like, no, you don't get a phone yet. You don't, you don't need a phone. You're either with us or you're in a place where there is a responsible adult who can call us if that. Something gone wrong.

Exactly.

You don't need to be on TikTok as a 10 year old.

That's like, oh no, it's the, it's the worst. I'm so glad we didn't have that stuff because it would have been. Imagine being at an all boys school with tick tock and. Yeah, and, and all of that stuff would have just been terrible.

Yeah, yeah, definitely not a fan. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, getting back to resilience. But yeah, I think this link between resilience and purpose, so there's a stat that I've seen out there. So on average, if you have a sense of purpose around, you know, the thing that you're doing or trying to achieve it at a higher level, you have four times engagement and five times productivity on the task. So there is. And it's something that I always talk about in our sort of purpose workshops. I literally get people to do this. So everyone just start doing this and some people actively resist doing it. And then after a few seconds I go, right, who's getting bored of doing this? And people like, yep. And I'm like, but what if we just worked out that us doing this is pumping oxygen into the neonatal unit of the local hospital? Who'd be willing to keep going? And people like, yeah, I keep going. It's like, well, yeah. And we'd probably work out a way that one of us could take a rest while the other bus like the rest of us a little bit more so that we could actually keep this going for a very long time. Because there's a deep sense of meaning and contribution to the task. Whereas if I just said, who can do this the longest? Who cares?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's a meaning. It gives, it gives the activity meaning.

Yeah.

And, and that's what I think. I think it's Jordan Peterson who said, what we're actually dealing with at the moment is a crisis of meaning. People don't know why, why, what am I doing this for? Is there a purpose to life? And those types of workshops that you're doing will certainly help people on that path and businesses. And that's what B Corp is all about.

Rather than just extracting natural resources, how can we add and regenerate and build and, and create a better future for our kids?

Yeah. What a crazy idea. It, it might catch on.

I think it is. As a B Corp pending at Resilience Institute, we are really happy to be on that path and I think that it really made us look at what we do and how we operate and what our priorities are in A new light. And, and, and that's part of the reason I reached out to you. Because we realized that our program can help B Corps because we do it for ourselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100. So, yes. How did Resilience Institute come across? B Corp.

So our new CEO, who's based in Switzerland, he brought B Corp to Europe actually. So he and his. One of.

He kind of knew a guy.

Yeah.

He'S. He knows a lot of those guys and he. Yeah, he was the first. I believe it was the first B Corp in Europe for his. He owns a resort in the Alps or he's a part owner of a result in the Swiss Alps and he wanted it to be B Corp certified. And yeah, it's quite amazing. So he, he did that. And so it was a priority as we shifted into this new company headquartered in Switzerland, you know, the new version of ourselves that it was B Corp certified. And it was quite a challenging process, I have to admit, because it really scrutinizes how you work, how you, how you play. Like, we did it all ourselves. We didn't have a miracle worker like you to help us, someone who really knows the ropes. But by the end of it, we did end up with a B leader on our team, which is amazing. So one of our team, internally. Yeah, one of our team, Pauline, she really loved the B Corp approach and the journey, and she upskilled herself to become a B leader, which is wonderful.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I've been having this conversation recently with a. With a few clients, potential clients, and just wider audiences. B Corp. It's this bizarre thing that it's a certification framework that shouldn't be that sexy or exciting, but somehow it's captured people. Whereas I'm yet to meet anyone who's gone, oh, ISO. I loved doing the ISO certification. It was so much fun. And the auditors were just so cool. All like, never. You always hear, oh, my God, like, ISO was so awful. It was like, ah, it's like sucked the life out of us. But B Corp, just like it captures people to the depth where it's kind of like, actually, I want to learn more about this. And yeah, I kind of. Well, I guess my theories are. There's a. There's a general zeitgeist of like this. I mean, we. If we get sort of really deep for a second, you know, Carl Jung, you know, psychologist or early psychologist, psychotherapist, you know, he. He talked about how.

Archetypically.

And astronomically we're currently in the. In the move from the age of.

Pisces to Aquarius. And archetypically the theory is, and, and there's a whole lot like we can get. We'll go a little bit woo woo here for a second because I love do it, I love it.

Yeah.

So the age of Pisces we have been in for the last 2000 odd years and the dominant religious belief system, Christianity has what as their symbol, the fish.

Hmm.

Well that's just interesting, isn't it? And so the theory is that, yeah, we're in this raising of consciousness period from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius and it's sort of beholden on us as the species to embrace this shift in consciousness. Like kind of feel it's happening and it's. They, it's potentially like a 60 to 100 year window that we're going through where suddenly we have this collective kind of aha moment of oh right, there is a little bit more to this thing. And I, I kind of feel that this is, this is a part of that shift. And like you say, people looking for meaning and the rise of. Yeah. Public people talking. There's another guy, John Vervake, who is also from the University of Toronto. He, if you've got an inclination, I did it during lockdown. He's got like a 59 part program called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. And he. It's like, yeah, each video is like 90 minutes. He talks slowly though, so you can put it on double speed. Done. And he traces back like the meaning crisis all the way back to like pre Greek, you know, philosophies and all the way through to, you know, the current addiction crises and opioids and like, why are we seeking this, this stuff in the wrong place? So yeah, I think there's a general zeitgeist that's been captured that B Corp is, it's the right thing at the right time.

So do you think this is the, this is, this is potentially the real enlightenment rather than what. Whatever happened a few years ago?

Yeah.

Waking up to the fact that. Well, you know, I personally think that. And I think it was Alan Watts who said, you know, life doesn't come from nothing. Life comes from life. Hence treat this planet as a living organism, Gaia, whatever you want to call it. And, and I think that's so important and that's something that's been neglected for such a long time. We plundered the natural resources and it was fine until we got technology that enabled us to do it at scale. Yeah. And now. And it's hard to give up. Give it up. So now we have to shift to a new way of working and there's great resistance. Like, I think it's so important to have people, people like you on this path, helping others find their way, because there is great resistance to this change at the same time.

Yeah. 100. Well, and there will be this. If you're part of the established dominant way of. We've been running the show and it's working for me. Yeah. And I think we're seeing that tension, you know, with, with some of the bigger companies joining the B Corp community and people, how can they be a member? Like, you know, I'll say the N word. Nespresso or Unilever. People like, well, how can. But to me it's like, well, isn't it amazing that they want to be a part of being different? And, and those companies at scale, changing their mindset, even a couple of, you know, degrees can have a. A massive influence, you know, as a force for good. So, yeah, I think we're going to be in this really messy transitionary period and we, we don't. Yeah, I think it seems. Yeah. Looking back to the Enlightenment, I studied history at university and at school, I thought, you know, we did the Enlightenment and I guess we. Feels like we're in the artifact of that period. It's like rationality, you know, the Enlightenment, even though it's called the Enlightenment, it was, it was. Was mainly rationality. It was materiality, it was numbers, it was science. But again, you know what's interesting? The more you look into it, like, people.

What's the guy's name? The famous physicist Newton. Like, he was actually a very religious guy. Watson and Crick, the guys who discovered DNA, really Christian guys, and they were like, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

They're like, you know, we have seen God, you know, in the, you know, in the human. Like, there's an even. Darwin was a, you know. Yeah. Pretty religious guy. So. Yeah, we've kind of thrown out the fact that there was an element of spirituality and religion for some of these people that have been held up as like, science at all costs.

Yeah.

And I guess it's aligned to what Joseph Campbell talks about in his work. You know, if you, if you look at the buildings, you know, 2,000 years ago, the, the spirit, spirituality was the center of your town or village, the church, whether you're into Christianity or whatever. But sake of the argument, you know, the, the temple was the center of your community, whereas now what's in the center of all our Cities, big high rise buildings owned by financial institutions. And it's like, what is the God that we worship? The God of money and the God of materiality. And it doesn't work for us. And I think we're going to be in this really interesting period where it's like there's going to be a lot of tension and it's going to go one way than the other. But I feel ultimately it's within us to be more conscious than not.

Yeah. Well, when you travel and that's one of the things that I'm really glad that I got to do. You realize most people are good. Most people want to care about nature. Most people will invite you in for dinner. Most people are friendly. It's just a few players on the stage who maybe have gone astray. You know, I like to think that. Is anyone inherently evil? Don't know. It's a big question, what is evil, what is good? But most people at the end of the day probably want a world where they, their offspring can thrive rather than survive.

Yep. 100. Was it Dostoevsky who said the line between good and evil runs right through the heart of everything person.

That's exactly.

It's all within us and it's all there. Yeah.

Just depends on the situation. Yeah, yeah. So navigating how resilient you are and how resilient you are. Yeah. How much you can just grit your teeth and focus on that purpose. Don't grit, don't grind. Yeah.

Exactly. Especially at night. That's never a good thing. But you know, stay the course. I think that's, that's the important thing is just to realize that no matter what life throws at you, you can always, you can always navigate it. You don't have to crumple. And I've seen this with young guys who have just come out of prison and they're doing the surf therapy program. Some of the most inspirational quotes and moments I've ever heard come from these young guys who had nothing. The most troubled childhoods. And they turn it around and they turn it into the story of like they change their own narrative to say, if I ever get knocked down, I'll get back up again. There's always something I can do. I can always ride another wave, it's fine. And they take that and you see them end up doing amazing things like working in music or working get as electricians and all kinds of stuff. So I think finding that as you said, finding. So any tips for finding your purpose?

Well, just before we go there, this is an Interesting that you just raised is that, you know, some of the most successful people.

People.

Whether it's materially successful, like, what's the soccer player? The guy who just got kicked out of Man United.

Can'T remember his name. But some of some of the most successful sports people in particular come from really, really tough, troubled, like, awful backgrounds. Now, there's an interesting argument to be made as a parent. Well, for my child to be successful.

Yeah.

Should I create an artificially terrible life experience? Because I look at, you know, my wife and I look at our daughter's life. She could not be more bourgeois if she tried, you know, skiing in the winter, dance lessons, guitar lessons. You know, we tried. We tried tennis. Didn't like tennis in the summer. So we'll try a different sport. It's like, oh, my God, you're like a wagyu beef cow that's just fed, watered, and massaged.

It is so crazy. My daughter said to us, oh, daddy, can we. I'm not such a big fan of Fiji. Could we go to Cook Islands? I was like, okay, this needs to change this.

I had never even seen a plane until I was 18.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's like, what's the beach? Explain to me what this beach thing you talk about is. So, I mean, there's an argument to go, actually, maybe we should get both our kids and just drop them in the middle of the wilderness with a. With a GPS tracker pointing back to home and go. Right. We'll see in a week.

Yes.

How do we balance that in the modern world?

I think that's such a good question. I think it's not always swooping in to support them, but creating the space for them to. To grow. Yeah. I have a tendency when my daughter's sad, like, she rushes off to her room and I want to go in and comfort her, but it's actually better to let her get bored, Let her spend a little bit of time there, get bored, and come back out whenever she's. She's ready. I think allowing them to grow from adversity because it is within adversity that we grow, and then putting them into uncomfortable situations because if you can make discomfort a good thing, that's how you set yourself up for a life of growth. And we. We try and make life comfortable for them because it feels good for us to know that they're safe and looked after. But as you said, maybe dropping them off in the forest for a week is extreme, but you could drop. Take them. And my daughter hates our long forest walks. She's like, oh, I'll do anything except for forest walking. We're going and deal with it. Halfway through it, she's jumping around and laughing. It would have been very easy just to not do that because it's a drama.

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely. Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. I had a comment that or a thought, but it's escaped me. We'll come back. But yeah, sorry. So getting back onto the purpose thing. So tips for purpose, was that.

How do you find it?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great. It's the pits. Well, ironically, it's not the million dollar question because I think not that many. Like I said, I think some people are kind of like comfortable not exploring it, not looking for it, but realizing deeply down subconsciously that they do need it. So like, you know, discomfort. I love the etymology of words like, you know, disease. Dis. Ease. Yeah. If you are dis. Eased. If you're not at ease, you will be diseased. And I think, you know. Yeah, I guess top tips would be. I think the first thing and. And this was big for me was like true self awareness. Self awareness. So, you know, on the temple at Delphi, to the oracle there, it had inscribed on the front, know thyself. And it's like, actually, who are you?

That's it.

And there's a really cool phrase which is really hard to get your head around, but it's along the lines of, I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am. And it's like we, we. We put up the. You know, there's so many. So much cool stuff. And so Persona is. Comes from Greek, which means mask. In the play, you would put on different Personas, different masks. And so understanding your true Persona. What masks am I wearing or am I really me? And the only way you'll know that is to go and challenge that, test it. And I think, again, this is the link to resilience. And I think, again, this is something that military stuff at heart is like breaking you down until you are just a crying wreck. It's like actually, who am I at my core and how far can I go? Again, I think looking back on it, that was a really interesting. Because it's kind of. There's sort of three parts to the purpose journey. There's like, who am I today? And actually who am I? And I'll put a link in it. One of the really cool tools you can use is called prowse. Questionnaire. So back in the Enlightenment or late 1800, early 1800s, a bit later, instead of having, you know, TikTok and Facebook and whatever, what people would do is they. They'd write a questionnaire and then go to one of the tea or coffee houses and you'd share your questionnaire with your friends, you'd go away and you come out the next week with your answers. And Prowse questionnaire is used by fiction writers to create a character. Because I think it's 35 or 36 questions around, like, you know, what would this person's motto be? Or, you know, what would your motto be? Which female do you most admire? Which male do you most admire? What virtues do you admire? What do you most dislike in a person? Literally, how would you like to die? What would be your motto? And so fiction writers used it to get into the psyche of a character to create that person. So who am I? Is the big one. And for that I would say press questionnaire. And if you haven't done some personality profile testing, do that helps. And yeah, just put yourself roughly in a bucket. And then the key for me having. Having done perhaps questionnaire is actually, is that really me or have I answered this as to who I think I should be based on my schooling, my parents, my society? Like, actually. And I call that the authenticity gap gap. And I think this is typically for guys where that midlife crisis comes from because you have. Your prefrontal cortex has been on board for a few years. You hit emotional maturity, and it's that classic song. You know, you wake up one day in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife, and you ask yourself, how did I get here? And you have that crashing moment where it all collapses because you're like, I don't know who I am. So the next key then was to go and work out, well, where did I come from? And how far away am I from the truest version of me that I could. And I guess the definition of purpose that I work with is purpose is defined as the reason for which something was made or created and something's useful. Usefulness. And so if you go back to the day you were made or created, like the. The chance that you should have been born as Brad Hook, with everything that you are, your physiology, your temperament, your genetic. Like it is so infinitesimally small that you should have been born as you.

Yeah.

Bearing in mind that you are at the end of an un. Unbroken chain of genetic reproduction that goes back however many years. Yeah. To stardust. So why Are you here? You know, you were born with a unique set of skills, talents, whatever, and you know, you kind of get corrupt. Well, most people get corrupted on that journey to who they are today. So you need to try and work out, well, how far have I strayed from that original person? And that's the hard part of purpose because, you know, you've got to go into the long dark night of the soul and work out why am I who I am and do I like who I am and what are the parts of me that I'm ignoring? Which is what Jung would call a shadow. Like is there, are there masculine and feminine traits of mine that I, I hold down because dad was always angry and I don't want to be too masculine because I don't want to be like dad or, you know, my mum wasn't there for me. So I ignore the feminine, like all of that stuff. Yeah. Which is, that's the hard stuff of purpose because you don't want to go there. But that is the archetypical journey, you know, the story of possible. And you know, the Knights of the Round Table, you know, you must enter the forest where it appears darkest to you. What a great. I mean, I get tingly just thinking about that, like. But that's the hard part. So if you can go and do that and then the next part. And I love this again, Carl Jung, who could you be? You know, that's why I've got the poster behind me. Imagine who you could be and then aim single mindedly at it. It. And so this is like the, the triumvirate part of purpose. So Carl Jung had a quote, you know, curiosity is the best potential version of you calling yourself towards it.

I love it so much.

How cool is that? So it's like, who am I today? Am I who I should be and how far and what do I need to adjust? And again, this is where you get the symbology of the phoenix. And you know, all, all major religious belief systems have this idea of a death and a rebirth. Earth. Yes. And you get to do that on a 12 hour cycle, you know, every or 24 hour cycle. Every morning you get to wake up and be who can I be today? And then using that curiosity, using that lens of what I. What am I being compelled to think and, and feel and believe and check and you know, look into, put that all together, you got purpose. And I say that like it's, you know, get it done in half an hour. But it's, you know, it's hard and that's why most people don't go and do it because you've got to go from front a lot of stuff to it you don't want to go confront.

And what do you think about fast tracks to discovering your purpose and shattering the illusion of who you were? Such as going and drinking ayahuasca in the jungle somewhere or is it whatever, whatever works for you.

Look, I haven't done any of that but that is on my, it's kind of on my list. I think it's really interesting that you see, you know, at Auckland University on the back of work done at the lead researcher Auckland University has spun out of UCL University in London and they have been micro dosing psilocybin and mushrooms.

I, I feel like I'm spiritually and metaphysically ready to try something like that now. I think if I, I think that's the risk. I think if you're trying to. The, the small amount of research I've done, I think if you are trying to do it as the, as the genuine shortcut, I don't think you're going to get out of great. I think you need to be, I think you need to do some. And realistically I think this in many ways is the, the underlying meaning of life is to work out why, why are you here and then to, to do that and it's not meant to be so easy. But that was, that was the thing I was going to mention. I think it's really interesting, you know, when we talk about resilience with the kids and stuff. In most, you know, tribal setups you get to a certain age and the boys go and do something really hard that's physical. And typically it's like you're going into the bush for a couple of weeks and if you don't come back, you just weren't meant to be a guy in this tribe. Exactly. I think that is a massive thing that we miss in our modern safe, disconnected worlds. And again, a big part of that was you're going in to spend multiple nights in the wilderness with all sorts of beasties that you can hear, that you're not sleeping very well and you're having that conversation in your head about who am I and can I do this and where do you get that? In a world that's full of tick tock and notifications and TV and light.

Pollution, yeah, we should all have to do that. I think these and there should be multiple initiations over the course of our lives and having a child is one for sure. But beyond that, you know, putting ourselves into deliberate adversity. Like the stoics, that negative visualization. Some of them would actually just be homeless for a few days so they could experience.

I know that if worse comes to worse, I mean, and you know, I kind of do that in my head. It's like, you know what, like with this massive recession that might be coming next year, it's like, I've got a 10. We've got a 10.

Yeah.

Like we go camping. We pay to go camping.

We know we can do it. Like if it's. It really turned to. To we can camp. We could do it. Like it's not really great. It's not on the plan. It's not what we should be doing as a bourgeois middle class couple with a daughter that needs to go skiing and go to the right Pacific island. But, you know, worst comes to worse, we can, we could make that happen.

Do you know what? We'd probably be quite happy.

Well, this is the thing I always noticed like when we do go camping, it, you know, in the summer you kind of go away with one pair of nice shorts and a T shirt and one sort of sports type kit and you wear the same clothes for the whole week and you're pretty happy about it. And then you get home and you go, gosh, we do have quite a lot of crap in the wardrobe here, don't we? I haven't actually worn, so I agree. I think, yeah, maybe getting back to.

Getting back to nature is something tangible that anyone could take away. Whether it's by yourself or with your family or with friends. That gives you some space just to process what's been going on in your life.

100 and that's, that's another key step towards that sort of purpose. Discovery is like just pause for a minute, just pause from the busyness and just take that time for kind of self awareness. Which then leads to the. The other thing I talk about is head, heart, hand alignment. You know, are you thinking, are you doing, are you feeling, is it all in alignment? Or is that. That's typically where the disease manifests? It's of kind, kind of like. And this is probably what you were experiencing, you know, towards the end of that time before you transitioned into your own business is like. Or those clients is kind of like, don't feel that working for this company is what I want to do. But your head's telling you, yeah, but you've got to pay some bills next month. And it's like, yeah, but I really don't want to get the money from them. And it's. I think a lot of people are possibly subconsciously having that feeling at work and some of them consciously. But I don't know how to not, not do what I'm doing because I've kind of set my stall out that this is me. I am a lawyer, I am doing this. I am a CEO. I have, yeah, I have that. I've built my life around that. And if I pull the rug out from underneath that, I don't know what's going to happen.

Exactly. You know, something that pops into my mind is what gives you flow. What are those activities that help you vanish. You lose track of time, you lose track of being or whatever. You're just in the zone, in the moment. And, and that's a nice gateway to purpose as well. Because I can stop associating yourself with. Oh yeah, I'm a CEO of a company who, and this is what I do too. I love mountain climbing. I love it. And, and that gives my life meaning as well. And, and maybe there's ways to build bridges between what you do all day and that activity that you love.

I think. Yeah, I kind of always look at flow in, in two ways. You've got like restorative flow. So for me going skiing, it's like. And.

Caught up. There's a company based in Oakuni up North called C6 skis and they've got Dwayne who's one of their team and he, he sort of runs the demo days and takes you for a few loops and talking to him just on, on this, on the chairlifts with a, with a mate by Michael Philpott and he was sort of saying for you guys self employed, like this must be a big. This is why you do this, isn't it? It's like, like, yes. Like the only thing you can think about is the next turn.

Yeah, that's real flow.

And that is real flow. But it's. I, yeah, I call that like restorative flow where I'm not thinking about work. I mean, yeah, ideas will pop up. You're in the big mountains, expansive views, you know, you're working out like it's good. But this is the thing in terms of work based flow. And again this is like another clue for purpose is when you are in a state of flow, you are literally having a transcendental moment. Moment because you, the space time continuum is like, like all around you. So if you can use work based flow states for contribution that some to something that's bigger than you, like There you go. That's the easy part. That's. In many ways, that's the easy way to start connecting to purpose. And. And Gandhi has a good quote around that, like, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. So if you can get into a state of flow. Flow where you can. And. And sometimes it's even a case of just connecting to that in what I'm. In what you're currently doing, which might not be the thing that you really, really want to do, but at least understand the contribution that you're making to another human. And if. Are you utilizing your core. And again, so much of this. So genius. Like, if I say. If I say think of a genius, there is typically a male character that comes to mind when I say the word genius. Who would that be?

Albert Einstein.

Every time, without fail. Not prompted. Didn't pay him to say Einstein. But the word genius. Again, the root of the word genius comes from Latin, which means spirit. And so if someone is a genius, it. It. What it fundamentally means is they are fully incorporating their true spirit. You know, this is who you were born to be. You're utilizing your genius. And then it's interesting that, you know, genie, genius, the whole Aladdin. If I, you know, rub the. The gold. And again, gold, incorruptible. The sun. You know, the thing that we. So if you can, you know, get from the. The lamp, the unconstrained potential of your genius into the world, well, then you become a better person. There's so much symbology around this stuff. So, yeah, that. That you being the truest version of you, which is, like, I say, that's the hard part to unbunk it. And I guess there's that Monty Python sketch. I love that one of Monty Python. Holy Grail with the prince in the tower. Gemma. That one where he's. They come to save. They think they're saving a princess from the tower, but it's the prince. And he's like, but I don't want to be king. I just want to sing and dance before.

You know, I do remember that one.

That is a lot of people. I've been groomed to be the king, but I don't want to. I don't want to do this. But, you know, so it might be to begin with, at least just understand the good that you're doing with and utilize the best skills that you've got, which will add to your resilience. You know, you're gonna. I'm more engaged. I'm doing More of what I love doing and then start thinking about, okay, well actually is it the company that I don't like, is it the product that I don't like? How could I transition? Or go and find some volunteering opportunities? Go and find the charity. Yeah. Is solving the thing that you really care about. And, and hey look, I can help you with your it, I can help you with your hr, I can help you with your legal, whatever it is is, you know, I can come and do some business development for you. I've got five hours a month to start with.

It will give you so much meaning whilst doing something good. It's amazing how being of service, it transforms everything. It transforms how you view a situation. When I look back, that's been some of the most rewarding moments is doing things purely to, to help others. Free resilience, training for groups and you come away with such a buzz.

Yeah, well this is the ironic thing. Like when you are on purpose it is the, it is the most selfish act because it's fulfilling for you, but you're also doing the, you know, when you get to maximum purpose you are contributing to the fullest to your family, your community, your society, the planet. And it's good for you. So it's like, which is why to me it's, it, it is innate to us to do that because was. It is. I used to call it the self. The self sourcing chocolate cake of goodness. It's like this chocolate souffle and the sauce just, just keeps coming out and sourcing it and it's amazing and it tastes great and there's, there's enough for everyone. You know, it's. Yeah, I think it's, it's what we're designed for.

That's an abundant resource.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a guy, Greg, is it? Greg Hart I think his name is after fact check that he's a farmer down in Napier and him and I were both speaking at a conversation conference together and he had a great phrase that he took in his talk. He said look, humans shouldn't be minimizing their impact on the planet. We need to be maximizing our positive impact. And I'm like, oh, nailed it. You know, that's the thing. Like let's not think about how to not be here as a species. Let's think about how to be here. You know, we've got so much potential. I, I refer back to. Was it, I think it was 2019. Wrote some, some, some scientists in Japan landed a robot on an asteroid in outer space. But we can do that. I think we can possibly do quite a few other things.

Exactly. When you think of all the brilliant minds who are dedicated to building bombs, imagine if we just. If they all refocused on that plastic island in the Pacific Ocean.

Exactly that. Or they're currently trying to build some AI bot to win the stock market or whatever. It's like scary, you know, completely meaningless. That hopefully they, you know. I think.

Yes.

Yeah. I just think, I think we're getting to this tipping point where more and more people are just like, we need to do things differently. And I think it's, it's. Yeah, I think we're, we're in the curve of it and I don't think we can actually see how quickly things are moving right now, but I guess sense it's going to start happening pretty.

I think it is. I think one thing that we need is just alternative of ways of connect. We've got social media and that's one way. But without mainstream news, which is very much influenced by advertisers, so it's hard to get really truthful information. And so many people just believe everything that they read in the news as.

If it's gospel 100%. I'm sure to find a quote here on my phone. David Graeber, who's recently, not that long ago, passed away, but he's written a few books. One of his good ones was Bullshit jobs, which I think that summarizes a lot of the modern world. You know, there's like the flunky, whatever. Like this is five types of jobs that he refers to that are just completely meaningless. Like you're just propping up another meaningless job. But one of his.

Quote of his, the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently. It's like you've nailed it. And this is again, this is where I think I'm hopeful because we're having this, this raising of the level of consciousness. It's like, what's. Why, why have we done it this way for the last 200 years? And I think again, a lot of the systems, you know, like, like modern media, well, it's only really been around since what probably, you know, the 1800s really was when like, you know, your establishment of the major newspapers probably miss the 1800s, you know, so it's actually only a couple hundred years old. It's not like it's been with us since 10,000 BC. Whereas.

Exactly.

I think there's, there's, there, there is increasingly, you Know, new archaeological finds. Like there's a place called. In Northern Turkey.

Incredible, right?

Yeah. It's like that's just blown the historic timeline of humans capability by 10,000 years, you know.

Exactly.

You know, and the stuff they're saying, clearly they were worshiping and doing stuff there. And so we've been doing this for quite a while and we've kind of. In the last 50 to 100 years, we've got. No, actually we don't need any of that.

That I agree. I think we need to rediscover it in, in, in one way or other. And maybe it's each one of us discovering it for ourselves and then aligning with some kind of purpose, recognizing that it's always, there's always going to be this balance and contrast between people going one way and people going another way. That's just, that's just what it is to be human, I guess.

This crazy ride on this spinning disc in the. Isn't it infinite universes.

Just talking monkeys on a spinning disc.

Talking monkeys in meat suits on a spinning disc.

What could go wrong?

Sometimes, I mean, I say this frequently. It's like, it's. Sometimes it's amazing that we've actually lasted this long with how stupid we can be and the fact that we are semi advanced monkeys with meat suits spinning on a disc in the middle of infinite universes. Like there's plenty of, you know, But I guess perhaps more so with that. Was it that nuclear clock that they've got, you know. Oh, yeah. How close we are?

Yeah, like half a second.

Like, Jesus.

Yeah, Those must be an optimistic bunch.

It's like just to remind you that we're all going to die and we don't have a plan.

Yeah. There's no plan B. Yeah. And I think. Well, that's, I mean, that's another interesting topic I guess, is like global leadership and, you know, purpose and resilience of leaders. It just kind of feels like out of the. What are we now, 8 billion people. It kind of feels like surely there's. If you look at the, like the G20, like surely there's 20 people of a slightly higher level of consciousness and general awareness and resilience and purpose that we could possibly get into those roles. Yeah, I don't know.

Well, they, it's. It's unfortunate that they're elected by popularity contests and whoever kisses the most babies or has the nicest hair ends up being the Prime Minister.

Except for Boris, who managed to get in with the wildest.

How did he do that? Maybe that was his unique selling point.

Like, I've got to give this a try. No one else has got hair like this. People. Yeah.

Or maybe Trump when he gets off a plane.

Trump and Boris. Yeah, they both got very similar bad blonde haircuts.

But as you say, the. What I'm seeing out there is that there are people who are rising up. I mean, you see people like Tulsi Gabbard Blood and.

Yeah.

In the US Like a different type of leader with very different intentions. And that's what we need, hopefully.

Was it like Billy Connolly, the comedian, said, anyone who puts themselves up for election should automatically be discounted. It's kind of like, yeah, if you want this that bad. And again, I think. I think you look back to a lot of, you know, indigenous tribes, again with that, you know, sort of trial, you know, entry into manhood or womanhood, you know, some kind of sense of ritual and. And tough. Tough try trials. There's. There's a part to that as well where it's quite common in some tribes that you're given a birth name and then you go through, like, the tribe watches you as you're developing. And quite often you. You. As you go through that rite of passage, you might be given a new name because they've recognized that actually you've. You've developed instinctively on this other path. And, you know, it's not uncommon that, you know, you would be caught, like, you are going to be the person who becomes our historian and is going to learn. And like you, I've been chosen by the tribe. And again, like, you know, it's not always necessarily that lineage that, you know. Well, because I'm chief, you know, my. My son gets to be chief, like, quite often it's like. Well, actually, no, like, you've. We recognize that you're going to be the leader rather than what I want to be in. In charge of the tribe because I think I'm amazing. Amazing. Again, I think it's just. There's so much that we just.

Yeah.

And it's of service. Often those leaders are just committed to serving the tribe. It's not a. It's not a prestige thing. No, it's not like, yeah, now I get all the. The woman or whatever. Although in some cultures you probably would. But a lot of the time it was actually who's going to protect us, who's going to help us rather than who's going to dominate.

Yeah. 100. And I think there's research from. There's a comment, the guy's name. There's a guy who does a lot of research into like chimpanzees and stuff. And it's not the most dominant who, who wins out. It's actually the one who can negotiate the best and look after the majority of the tribe that is the most successful. But again, we seem to have lost that. It feels like it's all about dominance. And you know, I'm, I am the silverback and it's like you're not so sure you are me. You don't actually like that and you're not really thinking about the best interests of everyone.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I think that's Robert Sapolsky, isn't it?

Could be, yeah. I can't remember.

Yeah, he's, he's done some amazing research. He showed how within one generation the culture within a baboon tribe troop can change. So all of the males went and picked through some litter and all of the males died, they got poisoned. And so all that was left were these female baboons and, and their offspring. And within one generation the whole culture shifted from being this male dominated culture within that particular troop to being a fair and free culture where everyone collaborated like within one generation. Shows how quickly that can happen.

Interesting.

Crazy stuff, man. Crazy stuff.

Good.

Well, we've been going for quite a while.

Well, thank you.

Good man.

Yeah. What's next? Where, where does, what's, what's sort of next? Resilience Institute. So you've got a bit of a rebrand going on. You're saying you've got a new website, you're about to be a B corp. Yeah. What does Resilience look like in 23 and beyond?

So expanding into the, into North America. We already have a lot of clients there, but really trying to spread the love, connect with more people, help organizations. And I think that it's really just expanding our sphere of influence, you know, actually getting out there and, and growing, but growing in a sustainable way. Because what we do is, is helping others. And our goal, which we identified is that if we can create resilient people, they'll create more resilient organizations and ultimately we can work towards a more resilient planet, a more resilient future for all of us. Where, and I love what you said, instead of minimizing our impact, maximizing our positive impact like that nature positivity. Because we realized as a collective at Resilience Institute, we all, we all love planet Earth, this home, and we want to do something towards protecting it. And maybe if we can help elevate consciousness we'll get there. So, so that's pretty much what's next. I'm now responsible for marketing as well as a few other things, serving clients and it's a, it's a very, very rewarding journey. Yeah.

Nice.

What about you?

Yeah, no, I mean same kind of mantra really. You know, we, we. Well my, my theory has, you know I kind of came around to the same idea. It's like the individual create better individuals of higher purpose who will then demand organizations of higher purpose which will then demand society and a planet. So I think and it's like everything, it all starts with the individual, isn't it? You know we are and it's that tension between the individual individual in the group and. Yeah. So yeah, I mean we're pretty focused on getting more companies B Corp next year. That's kind of where we're starting I guess. We, it's kind of like the chocolate covered carrot, you know, like yeah, B Corp's cool, it's hip, it's fun. Like it'd be really good for your company. And then let's now start dropping in some little breadcrumbs of purpose and yeah. See how you go. Yeah, yeah.

That's amazing. Well, I will definitely be referring people to come and talk to you about becoming a B corp. Nice. I think it's an important likewise journey.

Yeah, well and also we should mention particularly for the people in our group. So we're, we're looking at scheming on doing a little event together in the new year with a little bit of. We thought. Well like I said, I've got a positive mindset kind of half day event that I run. So we can either look at positive mindset and resilience or we could even do a half day session on purpose and resilience. So people all our clients in the Be Better 100 group that will be mainly aimed at for you first dibs. But maybe we'll, we could, well we'll have a chat maybe see if we just offer it to anyone and everyone who wants to have a chat about doing that. But yeah, we, we thought after our conversation that could be a useful thing just to have a little taster of some resilience training, a little taster of some positive mindset or purpose work for the beginning of the year. Get you set up for 2023. So yeah, watch this space. We'll, we need to have a chat about that and then get some stuff going.

We'll do it. I look forward to it.

Hey man, it's been really Cool. Cool. Yeah, I just. I love your vibe. Love what you're up to.

Likewise.

You know, let's. Let's keep. Keep doing some cool stuff.

And 100. Enjoy the holidays. I hope you get to go camping.

Yes.

Cool. Cheers, mate.

Okay, bye.

Hey, it's Tim here. That B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.